Time out: What about the Babies??

Apparently chemo is harsh on your ovaries, who woulda thought? So my amazing docs made it clear that I should talk with a fertility clinic. Well I called and got the prices for the Denver clinic and even though they were discounted I immediately said that’s not happening. Insurance does not cover fertility. Which is fair.

My mom and sister  mentioned I should look at the Boise clinic though. Because you also have to go in daily for checkups and so I could easily stay with my parents, go into the office at work and still do this. We called and got quotes and they give a really good discount to cancer patients. Still pretty pricey but compared to Denver it was more doable, especially to just freeze eggs.

I had a phone consultation on Sunday the 19^th with Dr. Maas at the Idaho Center for Reproductive Medicine. He is so knowledgeable and gave me a great crash course in egg vs. embryo freezing 101.

My docs said they feel it was safe and fine to take 2 weeks delay on attacking the cancer so that I could do fertility stuff. It’s so awesome they were so informative and open about the fertility stuff. If you know anyone that gets diagnosed before they are done having kids. PLEASE, PLEASE MENTION TO THEM THAT THEY SHOULD TALK TO THEIR DOC OR A FERIITLY CLINIC ABOUT THEIR OPTIONS. So many people do not get told it could cause problems and then are in for a rude and painful awakening when they have finally beat cancer and are ready to begin a family. Not all docs mention these concerns with their patients and that’s not okay.

About Monday the 20^th at 6PM we decided we should do it. We were driving home from Denver after my port surgery and decided if we have this opportunity (thanks to the help of family) then we should do this.

Dr. Borges said we are probably 2-3 years out from trying for kids. Bummer. But thankfully I am still young and will still be in child bearing years so hopefully we will just be able to conceive the old fashioned way- lucky Tony! :)

I will also be taking a drug called zoladex (goserelin). It is an ovary suppressant which means it’s going to tell my brain to stop talking to my ovaries and send me into menopause.

Possible Side effects:

• Hot flashes
• Weight gain
• Moodiness-I am sorry to my friends and family that have to deal with me the next 5 months. 
• And a long list of random others. 

Benefits:

• It will shut my ovaries down and protect them in the hopes of bearing children in the future. 

This is a very new area of research and there is no real understanding of it and whether it really does a whole lot. But in one study it helped a handful of women conceive so let’s do it!

Boise & Baby Making

I immediately drove to Boise on Tuesday and perhaps that wasn’t the wisest thing to do after having a port procedure done 24 hours prior. I didn’t think about it until I was a few hours into my drive and I was in the middle of nowhere. My mind started to wander and think about my port, which then made me be more aware of the port and the weirdness of it. It didn’t hurt but just felt odd. Then that random thought crossed my mind of, what would I do if something happened to my port just now and I needed to go to the hospital? I’m like in the middle of nowhere with no cell service. Oops, bad time to have that thought. The next few hour were a little tense as I tried to calm myself down and tell myself nothing is wrong and nothing will go wrong.

On Wednesday afternoon my mom, sister and I headed to the fertility clinic together. We thought we would be meeting with someone to talk a little more about the plans but they immediately took me into a room (my mom and sis followed) and said, “please strip from the waist down and sit on the bed”. Next to the bed was a very long ultrasound probe. Mmm…I wonder where that is going to go?  After she left I stared at my family and laughed. I guess they’re straight to the point.

The first day was full of very quick info on what to expect, what my schedule would be for the next 10-14 days and a crash course on how to mix saline and drugs and give yourself a shot in the stomach.

I am not someone that likes or does well with shots. I have never donated blood because I am such a wuss. But when you get diagnosed with cancer you kind of have to get over that shit. You have to get used to IVs, pokes, prods, being touched and felt up.

They sent me on my way and said to come back Saturday but to make sure to do my shots each morning. So each morning I mixed my baby making drugs, stabbed myself in my belly fat and felt it flow into me. Go little drugs, make my ovaries grow!

They had told me common side effects are headaches, irritable, bloating, weight gain, discomfort in ovary (lower belly ) area and being emotional-easy to cry. For 3-4 days I kept just waiting for those effects to hit me, especially headaches since I usually get those so easy. And finally I had to remind myself that just because they are common and typical doesn't mean they’ll be common for me, so just be glad if they don’t come and if they do then deal with it then. And for the most part they never came! I definitely had bloating and I think weight gain. Then again the weight gain could have been a combination of the drugs, the fact that I had to take 2 weeks off from working out and well, I was in Boise going out to eat so my diet wasn't the best. Whatever, my body is about to go through so many changes and the important point is I will live and come back stronger! And thankfully right before this happened I was in the best shape of my entire life.

Overall the fertility experience was just fine. Daily checkups that involved long probs stuck where the sun don’t shine, and lots of blood draws. And my body was reacting wonderfully they said, especially considering the fact they had to start me on these drugs at not the most opportune time to my natural body’s process. Science these days.

Thursday the 30^th of April we really analyzed my body and the follicles (which gives them an indication of my egg count). And although I was progressing and reacting really well, they were thinking we would only get 10-14 eggs. Dr. Maas broke that down through all the different attrition rates that will take place during the process and ultimately it was factored out that if everything went on average, if we just did egg freezing we would have 2-3 embryos at the end ready for transfer. And we wouldn't know that until it came time to needing the embryos and thawing the eggs (so in the future years). Where if we did embryo freezing it would be 4-5 embryos most likely and we would know within a week, prior to our freeze how many of them will most likely survive and be available for transfer. So that creates a really big piece of mind for the upcoming years, which might be really nice.

Transfer of embryos is done 2 embryos at a time and that success rate is 60% chance of pregnancy. Those odds don’t seem that great, that’s like a D and I never get a D! But apparently if you were to take two 20 year olds, a male and a female who have perfect fertility and have sex daily, they only have 25% chance to get preggers. Pretty crazy considering all the accidental pregnancies. Obviously they get to retry multiple times, where once we’re out of embryos we are out. But at least we have a higher percentage it will work.The downfall of embryo is it costs more and then we need Tony, or part of Tony :) in the clinic.

So we decided to do it. It will end up being about $2800 more upfront than the egg freezing, but for an additional $2800 we are going to have a really good piece of mind. And if we end up needing to use them in the future then we will actually save money.

Next task is to bring the sperm, I mean Tony to Boise. So, we made the decision to do embryo on Friday the 1^st of May. Well at 2:30 AM on May 1^st, poor Tony woke up and spent the whole night throwing up. He went to work for a few hours and they sent him home where he tried to recover on the couch. Then his darling wife that he missed oh so much calls to tell him he needs to come to Boise, within 24 hours.

I look for flights and find a few out of Grand Junction. But my dad was actually in Salt Lake area driving towards Tony. The original plan was for egg freezing and then my mom would drive to Colorado with me so that I didn’t make the 11 hour drive alone after my surgery. We would drive down on Sunday the 3^rd or Monday the 4^th. My dad was already in Idaho Falls on 5/1 so he figured rather than driving back to Boise and then down to Carbondale he would just go straight to Carbondale on Friday. I called him as soon as we made the decision to tell him he could just turn around and we would fly Tony to Idaho and he would drive home with me. Long story short, my dad decided to drive another 4 hours towards Tony and meet him in Grand Junction and drive him back to Idaho by Saturday. So for 10 hours and an overnight stay in a hotel room my dad and sick husband journeyed their way towards Boise. I am sure they had some funny conversations.

Sunday morning Tony and I went to the fertility clinic. He did his thing and before I was put under I was told we had a great sperm count. Yay! Go Tony! That was the exact thing I wanted to hear before I was put under. :)

I did not disappoint either. They had hoped to get 10-14 eggs upon retrieval and they ended up with 18. Woop woop!

After surgery we hopped in the car and made the 10 hour drive back home. 

Monday the 4^th the eggs were fertilized and 14 of them were successfully fertilized. It’s so crazy to think about what is actually taking place and that our possible future children could have been created that day.

Wednesday the 6^th they called with an update on how many made it to day 3 embryos. 13 of them made it. Yay!

The last step before freezing is getting them to day 5 embryos and this is when you lose the most of them. They called us on 5/8 and told us that 8 were day 5 blastocysts and would be frozen. So now for the next few years we can rest assured that we have that many embryos available for transfer if we need them.

The future plan is to have my body tested after I am done with chemo to see how much damage was caused. Then once we are given the clear to conceive we will get to it. If it’s just not working, then at some point we will decide to finish with the invitro process and have the embryos thawed and transferred.

Okay, the question everyone seems to ask- what’s the likelihood of multiples? Well they prefer to transfer two embryos at a time because it’s a more successful percentage, but it does increase our chance of twins by 20%. But honestly, if I am having problems getting pregnant and I am getting older, then I don’t care. I would rather have twins then only one child or no children. So if it happens then we might be one and done! Now, if I have more than 2 at a time then that is not cool and not okay!